Travelling at the speed of Tata Communications

London to Hong Kong, twelve hours.
Hong Kong to Singapore, four hours.
Four hours back to Hong Kong followed by a half-day en route to San Francisco, and a quick couple-hour flight to Seattle.
Then it’s ten hours on a return trip to London to complete more than 20,000 miles of travel.
All in six days.

As the Chief Marketing Officer at Tata Communications, I’m no stranger to extensive global travel. In less than a week, I recently completed the itinerary above, attending executive conferences, press events, internal team brainstorms, hosting customers at a Formula 1® race and yet, there is still one thing that outpaces me: the Tata Communications global fiber optic network.

In fact, by the time you’ve read this, data from the network has traveled around the world sixteen times. More than 1.19 billion dollars has been invested in building the only wholly-owned subsea cable network that circles the globe, crossing over 240 countries and territories.

It’s this same network that provides the answer to an all too familiar question I run across in my daily travels: “How do you do it?”

The answer lies in a variety of technologies that help me stay on track and in constant communication with my clients, teams and colleagues. As someone who is on the road (and in the air) often, cloud-based video calling and conferencing services like jamvee are a predictable and dependable way of staying in touch and available for meetings. Since only 20-30 percent of communication is verbal, you can’t put yourself in a disadvantage 70 percent of time, missing all the nonverbal communication that happens during the course of a conversation.

But tools like jamvee aren’t the only way I maintain a connected environment anywhere in the world. As an active user of social media, you won’t find me tweeting photos of my morning oatmeal and coffee, but I do appreciate the enormous value of social-listening on Twitter.

For example, Twitter is a great way to build conversations ahead of a conference and I enjoy the people-centric culture and the strength of employee engagement. After an event I tend to proactively use LinkedIn for thoughtful business connections and networking. For example, my recent trip to a Seattle conference found me sending a LinkedIn note to a great speaker that I didn’t have a chance to engage in a one-on-one conversation at the event.

At 30-thousand feet, I often find myself on extended legs of trips without an Internet connection. I embrace the time to disconnect, focusing on writing and brainstorming tasks that call for uninterrupted work blocks. But I will often dip in and out of writing and research, calling upon the flight’s on-board Wi-Fi to finalize speeches and reports. Once I land, I don’t have to worry about losing an idea due to a lack of connection.

Of course, it’s not all business. As a mother to two young sons, I’m always searching for creative ways to maintain communication with my boys—even 10,000 miles away. Perch, an “always-on portal,” creates a steady video connection between two tablets, allowing me to connect with them to simply say hello or help with homework.

Over the past few years, technology has caused significant changes in the way enterprises conduct business. The exponential growth of connected devices, emergence of social media, analytics, and cloud computing, acceptance of BYOD, are all resulting in a major transition in the way we engage with technology on the road and in the office.

As a key enabler of information and communication technologies to global enterprises, Tata Communications has led from the front in ensuring a robust digital ecosystem that is equipped for the future: infrastructure that can cope with customers’ demands of intelligence, scalability and flexibility. No matter if you are in the air, the office or even stuck at the airport gate. Safe travels!

So, how do you do it? What’s your technology of choice to stay connected on the road? Share your thoughts in the comments section below

Follow Julie on Twitter: @juliewoodsmoss